Have you every tried a Larabar? They're basically food bars with few ingredients designed to be healthy yet taste indulgent. I accidentally made a mock Larabar this morning and thought I'd share it with you.

I've been wanting to play with dates for a while and also wanted to incorporate my chocolate True Food supplement into a recipe, and this was the result.

I'll be honest, if you're looking for a brownie, this won't do the trick (unless you're super into health food, then maybe). For me, it tasted exactly like a Larabar. If you haven't tried one, think healthy fudge meets healthy brownie meets healthy granola bar. If you have a better description, please feel free to share it with me.

You can make it with either a blender or food processor. I used my blender because it was already out, but think a food processor would probably work better. First I blended my walnuts. I had to be careful here, because some of them wanted to start turning into a walnut butter before they could all chop. What resulted was having some walnut chunks in my finished product, which I don't mind (I actually like having a crunch to chew). However, if you want a smoother product, try chopping your walnuts before hand.

After blending the walnuts I added the rest of the ingredients.

DON'T do what I did here! Pit your dates beforehand. I've never worked with dates before. I always see the warning "may contain date pits" on products that have dates in them, but I didn't think to pit them. Do. Luckily I was able to find most of the pits after I started blending, but I am still eating the brownie balls (that's what we'll call these mock Larabar balls) carefully just in case.

Blend them until everything is combined and you have a sticky batter. This was a little challenging in the blender which is why I think a food processor would work better. I ended up taking some out and blending it a third at a time.

Once everything is blended, your batter should roll together really easily. These balls were super easy to make. I rolled some of them in cocoa powder, and left some of them plain. I put them in the freezer on the plate to set some before transferring them to another container for storage. You can keep them in the freezer or the refrigerator. I'm freezing mine.

I think I prefer the ones rolled in cocoa powder to the plain ones because it adds an extra kick, and because I love chocolate! In the future I think they would taste even better with some dried fruit (like cherries or cranberries) and/or some mini chocolate chips. I might even lay them flat in a brownie pan and cut them into little squares for something different. Feel free to play with it and make it your own.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups walnuts

1/8 cup cocoa powder

1/8 cup chocolate True Food

1 cup pitted dates

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon water

Dash of sea salt

Optional mix ins and/or cocoa powder for dusting

Instructions:

Chop walnuts and then blend all ingredients until a sticky batter forms.